Damien at the Speed of Life – DATSOL

“It began I believe when Adam found Eve he woke up
and made her his wife On that very first day she
asked in dismay am I the first girl in your life
Wives don’t like old girlfriends you know that’s a
fact of life Wives don’t like old girlfriends and
girlfriends don’t like old wives [guitar]

Now if you don’t lie I’ll bet every guy has an old
flame that he thinks about Wives pretend not to
care but to her it’s as clear as if you were
thinking out loud Wives don’t like old
girlfriends… [guitar]
Oh it’s an awful sad affair and though it’s not
there anywhere Wives don’t like old girlfriends…”
[fiddle - guitar - piano]

——

Thanks to Suzy Bogguss for reminding us husbands of that. In the past I have received emails from a few exes asking that I add them to my Facebook, MySpace, Blogroll, what-have-you.  Upon careful contemplation, I have decided I aint gonna do that.  It’s almost like taking more mints than you need from the restaurant bowl when you’re nearly out the door.  Aint the memory enough?  What’s your take?

If you haven’t discovered it yet, Entrecard.com is a relatively new service for blog marketing and networking. You have an “entrecard” and all the other blogs do as well. You get points to advertise your blog through “dropping” on other blogs. There is a lot more to it but that is the basic gist of it.

I used to spend countless hours dropping and trying to get thousands of points. It got to a point where I was wasting valuable time on the service. Today mark the day I have really come back to it and I spent a very short amount of time. I wanted to record my results to see if I am at a good pace or if I am too slow. Plus, I’m hoping to get some pointers from you all. Here’s what I have learned works best for me:

1) Use IE as FF seems to crash a lot doing this heavy memory load stuff.
2) Use right-click “Open link in new tab” function, one drop at a time. I have tried multiple opens through “LINKY” add-on in FF and as I said, crash city!  It is way better in my opinion to drop one at a time.
3) Don’t rush. Be deliberate with each drop and take time to read the latest post. I even watched a video entry today and was very happy to see that. I do those from time to time.

That’s about all I’ve figured out so far. Here is my tracked time for today:

11:54pm start
12:10pm end
total: 16 mins.

Progress: 12 ec drops and 2 comments left

Will you try Entrecard.com now that I’ve shared my tips? If you already do it, are there any good tips you can share to cut time? (Hopefully we’ll get some tips from dragonblogger)

I think the two words are oxymorons sometimes.  Even though that has been my experience, I will not give up on the good people can do in friendships.  Like most people, I have been betrayed and stabbed in the back at work.  At the same time though, I’ve met people who were truly good to the core and these people keep me trusting in humanity. I hate it when people make loaded comments and seemingly keep you in the dark about things.  I am the kind of person who will tell you if I have a problem with you.  Unfortunately, not everyone is like that.  Many people see advancement or recognition as more important than people.  While I enjoy advancement and recognition, I take care to make sure they are never my primary motivator for doing what I do (I teach elementary school).  The trick for me with trust at work is learning the paramaters of healthy boundaries.

Another issue to discuss along these lines is the issue of boasting at work.  One person may innocently share at the water cooler about his/her new tv and another will feel the need to describe in vivid details his/her home theater furniture.

Do you trust people at work?

The reviewer learns from the reviewee

Reviewing peer blogs can be an excellent way to see bogging from “outside the box.”

I’ve been reviewing blogs let me tell ya!

I started a thread over at Blog Catalog offering anyone a blog review as long as it came to me prior to January 9th, 2009. I have a little time off work and I thought it would be fun to meet some new bloggers and maybe help some people out if possible. The response so far has been positive.

Ever bite off more than you can chew?

Just kidding.  Kinda.  I’ve managed to do 12 reviews in 3 hours and my neck hurts LOL. I’ve tried to be positive and comment on the PROS more than the cons. Some people have asked me to really criticize though so in some cases that is what I’ve done. Even though I am behind, I am committed to reviewing everyone who asks prior to the 9th. It is a blast and I am learning while I review.  I thought I would summarize a few things here on my personal blog that seemed common issues to me anyway:

Here’s the common roadblocks I see …

• Too many ads on new blogs is annoying – My advice? Wait until your traffic warrants payment. Generally 15,000 visitors or more per month.

• Intentional Branding is crucial – The name is the thing. Really think before you put up a name or a tagline. It is your currency and it is all you ever have in blogging. Many seem haphazard.

• Many blogs have way too broad of a scope – How many malls does a town need? Be a STORE not a mall. I am reading so many blogs that have taglines like “a little of this a little of that and everything else.” It is YOUR job to tell us who you are and why YOU are worth reading.

I hope my words are helpful and not pissing people off over there. I aim to do right by my contribution to people’s art. If you’d like a review of your blog, I still have plenty of spare time before the 9th. Go ahead and submit it over at Blog Catalog and I’ll do my worst for ya!

Thanks to the Blog Catalog folks I’ve reviewed for giving me the privilege of reviewing your work.  If the 9th has passed and you’d like a review, ask me.  If I have the time I’d be happy to.

The title is a line from “O Holy Night,” my favorite Christmas song. I thought it a fitting way to start looking at my yearly blog stats which I am so very thankful for this Christmas.  Merry Christmas if you are one of the first readers!

I’ve learned more each day as this past year has whizzed by. I’ve learned how to be better dad, to meet my goals more efficiently at work, and last but not least: I’ve learned key strategies to be a better blogger. As I sat down to outline this post as I always do, I realized I could never fit all I’ve learned about blogging in one post. Better yet, I decided to craft it into a series of post. If you tune in each day until New Years Day 2009 (or when I run out of ideas) you will get all my blog tips, free of charge. If you are tuning in after the series is finished, I hope you find the set to be helpful to you in creating, maintaining, and enjoying a valuable blog.

Looking Back

Last year, I embarked upon a blog journey of the acronym C.A.N. The letters stood for the three goals I measured each month:

Circulation (inbound links)
Analytics (visitors)
Net (Income)

I made goals each month and reported them to you. You can find the last several months C.A.N. results here. This was a very efficient way to measure my own progress. Here is a chart showing how my three blogs Fared in traffic the past 4 months:

I think the smartest thing I have done this past year is to monitor progress toward goals through my monthly CAN post on my personal blog. My hope is that my lower two blogs will rise in their analytics and come close to my psych blog.

Moving Forward

Since this date last year and now, 12-24-08, I’ve earned a total of: $2,137 blogging. If you are interested how I made that chunk of change, here are the sources, in order of highest earnings:

Pay Per Post
PayU2Blog

Review Me
Buy Blog Reviews
Private Ads (Random people who’ve asked to advertise on my blog)
Text Link Ads

I made the majority of this past year’s income when my highest PR was a 4/10. A few months ago, Google reduced me to a 1/10 and much of my opportunities to make money disappeared. This is the irony of Google’s PageRank system: They penalize you for posting sponsored posts and yet the ones who sponsor you pull away when Google penalizes you. There is a solution but it is quite cumbersome: add the tag rel=”nofollow” to any paid link. I’ve been diligent at doing this, not only with paid links but also with links that are irrelvant. I have heard this can affect PageRank as well.

What’s an honest blogger to do?

The secret then, to what I hope is my future success is to always be relevant when linking (ie; no blogrolls, random “link love” posts), always write valuable posts with excellent content (paid or not), rel=”nofollow” ads and sponsored posts when the buyer allows it (note: does all nofollow), and measure my progress toward goals on my personal blog. Finally, as I said earlier, I hope to bring the analytics of my teaching blog and this blog, my personal blog, up to the region on the chart where the psych blog is. If I pull that off in 2009, I will feel I’ve truly accomplished something.

I have many other strategies I am playing with to hopefully put a plasma big screen on the tv stand. In future posts in this series I will discuss social media and networking along with personal habits like scheduling times to post and future time stamping posts. I’ll also be taking YOUR QUESTIONS.  I hope you’ll “tune in.”

One sided phone conversation with a new blogger:

Photo from: Coffee 2 Go

So you want to blog eh? Well, you’ve come to the right place. I love helping people start their semantic journey. It reminds me when I started making a personal website on Geocities way back in 1997. You had to do everything in HTML back then and the closest thing to a blog was a guestbook I suppose. It was still freagin fun! But let’s get back to you. I understand you are on Blogger. No, I don’t mean you smoked the ashes of someone who used to blog, I am referring to the free blog platform owned by Google called “Blogger.” You are? Oh ok great. Actually not great. Did you know most school and public institutions block that provider? Why? I don’t know, ask them. Maybe the word “chat” pops up too much who knows? Anyway, if you want a decent audience, that fact alone will cut back your chances considerably. Oh, and did you know you can’t really change the appearance much other than their small collection of templates? I know a format that will make your appearance choices virtually unlimited. Oh, one more thing, you should know that your Blogger account has the most obtrusive and difficult to fill out comment forms for your readers. You will have a lot of people turn away because it’s so complicated. The one I know of has a simple box at the bottom of each post. Oh last but not least, did you know your blog platform is not as SEO friendly as mine? This means the search engines will place you lower than Wordpress blog with the same topic. Ready to try something different? Ok then! Cool. What’s that? You say you can’t afford to pay? Hmmm. You can’t afford $8.95 a month? What if you made $100 a month on your blog? Something to think about.

If you are interested in making the jump to a self-hosted Wordpress blog, I’d be glad to help. Drop me a line.

Okay, I want to especially thank Justin, an Apache engineer, for helping me out with some backlinks tracking issues.  It pays to have contacts in blogging!

Here are my 3 tips for better content:

1) Don’t create blog topics, Be open and let them come to you.  Carry a yellow pad on a clipboard and/or an mp3 voice recorder with you.  A lot of the new cell phones now have that function. (I have the new Walkman phone and it does).

2) Keep your sentences and posts as short as possible.  Make this question your mantra: “Is there a better way to say the same thing only shorter?”  With that in your system of composition, you cannot go wrong.

-and-

3) Write whenever you have an idea even if that means multiple posts per day.  You have some options here.  You can future-time-stamp posts through the Wordpress admin or you can just publish them.  Put no limitations on your urges to blog, especially at the beginning.  When you start getting text-link work or recent Sponsored posts you will be glad you have so many posts to insert them in and place in between.  I could explain what exactly I mean by that but it would take another post.

As I close, I want to scoop out some link love to 3 new bloggers who have taken my advice as they started their self-hosted blogs.  Thanks you guys!  I appreciate you listening to my advice.  Believe it or not, some have not taken it:

http://www.katelynjane.com

http://www.allrileyedup.com

http://www.dragonblogger.com

To new bloggers out there: Want to do the same as them and start a self-hosted blog? Want to become a successful blogger? Break away from the crowd of free-hosted blogs.  Contact me.

To keep track of the several income sources these blogs now have I like to do little progress reports sometimes around mid-month.  I know a lot of new bloggers out there reading could benefit by these posts, plus they help me stay focused on the important stuff to reach my monthly goals.  I want to give a shout out to my newest bloggy buddy Justin over at DragonBlogger.com He is really doing an impressive job toward his goals in a short time of his blog being live.  Another nod goes out to Katelynjane who has kept a really great blog for a while and lately she has achieved more of her goals than ever.  Another blogger I am excited to network with is AllRileyedUp.com she just migrated from a Wordpress.com and so far it’s been an exciting transition to watch. I am honored to be able to assist with and enjoy the growth of these three content-filled up-and-coming blogs.

Okay, back to my 3 blogs: If you’re new to these posts, you can read an explanation of my CAN blog rating system here.  The full post of September 2008’s goals I reference in this post is here.  This is a mid-month “check-in” on their progress toward monthly goals.

PFTFF

C – 6/20 incoming links
http://confidentwriting.com/2008/09/writing-advice-from-the-blogosphere/
http://www.itmightbelove.com/2008/09/02/chores-and-kisses/
http://dereksemmler.com/2008/09/08/speedlinking-sweetness/
http://www.dragonblogger.com/2008/09/blog-victim-stolen-content/ http://catatonickid.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/drumroll-please/
http://www.dragonblogger.com/2008/09/adding-google-analytics-wordpress-blog/

A  – 3,117/4000 visitors Wow! Some Stumbleupon spikes this month have helped.

N – $60/$400

I’ve got a ways to go with circulation and net.  Analytics is very well off already.  Nice to have something I can rest on.

DATSOL

C – 4/10 incoming links.

A  -  242/1140 visitors

N  -  $7/$50

DLP

C  – 2/3 incoming Links

A  – 163/500

N  – $9.63/$40

This are the “halfway mark” results Watch how I do in the rest of September. 

10 Highlights of my life today are:

1. The neighbors bazillion cars are parked in front my mailbox STILL and I am not getting mail.
2. I got paid today and said: “It is good.” It’s been a skinny month with my son’s birthday etc.
3. I cleaned my pool and it looks great.
4. I was really saddened as I watched the Diane Sawyer interview with Randy Pausch.
5. I got linked today by a really cool blog. Thanks!
6. My daughter seems to be growing so fast (3)
7. I’m going to buy her a coloring book, again, payday is good.
8. We’re going to Vegas on Sunday.
9. I have to write 4 days worth of posts for my 3 blogs and timestamp them: “Honey, make some black coffee!!!!”
10. I dig Wordpress’ Future Timestamp feature!

What are you up to?